Night and day, they were always ready, and it seemed as if their power and seaworthiness would take them anywhere. Well equipped for salvaging, they played an important part in saving the U.S.S. Olympia and afterwards the Texas, when they grounded, in 1917. Often they had long hours of hard duty, but could always be counted on. Service in them gave excellent experience for both officers and men, and many were the capable petty officers turned out. The question “Can you do it?” was never asked, nor “Are you ready?” It was necessary only to say go and do, and whether foggy or clear, the tug that was sent would nose her way through somehow.
These tugs were not properly equipped for mine sweeping, lacking the special type of winch needed for that purpose, but their 18 months’ experience with improvised arrangements yielded information of great value for the new design of a combined seagoing tug and mine-sweeper type, of the Bird Class, contracted for during the summer of 1917. By the original plan for the Northern Mine Barrage, the first 12 to be completed of these new sweeping vessels were assigned to the mine squadron, and continued efforts were made to expedite their completion, but without success so far as concerned their joining the mine squadron.
Meantime, in the experiments and tests of the mine, in training the new personnel, and in every kind of transportation and other assistance to the new minelayers during the month preparatory to sailing, the four original tugs were invaluable. The new sweepers not being ready, the original four were fitted out to take part in the work abroad. When the mine squadron left Hampton Roads late in April, 1918, the Patuxent and Patapsco were temporarily detached, to proceed by way of Bermuda, the Azores, and Brest, escorting a convoy of submarine chasers across. Rear Admiral Wilson, U.S.N., commended them for being the first to deliver such a convoy intact. They finally arrived at Inverness 24 June, 1918, where they were used to inspect and observe minefields, to communicate between the detachments of minelayers at the two bases, and to train men.
The larger pair, Sonoma and Ontario, were retained with the minelayers until their final sailing for abroad. The Sonoma, Lieutenant J. S. Trayer, accompanied the squadron on its trip across, making a notable passage for a vessel of her size. Always ready for any duty, up to station, and able to steam at maximum speed at the end of a 3000-mile run, she earned commendation for her captain and her engineer officer, Lieutenant L. W. Knight, U.S.N.
With the Ontario, which accompanied a convoy of submarine chasers across, the Sonoma, after a brief stay in Scotland, went to Queenstown, where the need for that type was greater than with the Mine Force. In this assignment their rescue of submarine victims was a continuation in greater degree of similar pre-war assistance, in home and Cuban ports, off Hatteras and Cape Maysi, rendered to vessels in distress from collision, breakdown, and fire at sea.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Mine Force, Old and New
Details of preparation have been only briefly touched upon in the preceding chapters, though actually their influence on the success of the operation deserves more prominence. It will not be supposed that the new squadron just grew, or that in the active operations everything just broke fair. On the contrary, success was earned by logical, consistent preparation, extending back over years and by sound organization and execution when the plan was launched. Hard work, development of doctrine, and prospective study, between 1914 and 1917, bore fruit, and, for the navy’s credit, the foresight which produced it deserves record along with the achievement itself.
While suitable and adequate material would ever be the first essential in such an operation, the all-important question lay in the personnel afloat. The excellent qualities of the new mine would be of no avail without proper laying of the barrage. Fortunately we already had a minelaying force, small but capable, so that we did not look abroad for instruction.
Prior to 1914, minelaying from a ship underway had received little attention in our navy, but when some early events of the great European war showed what a part mines were likely to play in the future, mining affairs were made the principal duty of Captain G. R. Marvell in the Navy Department, the conversion of two more minelayers was pushed to completion, and mine training was taken up in earnest in the fleet.